On Friday 19th July there were significant IT outages affecting businesses across the globe. The outage primarily affected businesses that use security software from a company called CrowdStrike. A recent update to their antivirus software contained an error that caused issues in the systems of many of the world’s leading businesses.
The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has confirmed their assessment that the outages were not the result of a security incident or malicious cyber activity.
They have also encouraged affected businesses to apply the fix that has already been issued. Their statement also encourages businesses to continue installing security updates, saying that this is still an essential security practice.
NCSC have also reported that an increase in phishing that refers to the outage has already been seen. These may be aimed at organisations or individuals. Therefore, businesses would do well to help staff be particularly alert with their emails over the next few weeks.
NCSC guidance on how to defend your business from phishing attacks can be found here: https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/phishing